Kodi Player - Advice Required

info_addict

Due to very poor internet speeds, I currently have all my movies and tv series stored on hard drives and play them through XBMC 10.1 on an old Revo pc. They are configured using Ember Media Manager data.

To save storage I now wish to play H265 files. I have tried upgrading to Kodi, but the Revo isn't capable of playing 1080p content smoothly. Also tried running it via Openelec on a USB stick, but just the same result.

Just looking for a plain and simple alternative I can plug my drives into and run Kodi. Have been looking at something like this

http://www.gearbest.com/tv-box-mini-pc/pp_471368.html

But I have no need for Android , or streaming etc.

Is there anything else I could consider? It must come with a remote or be capable of mouse control.

Thanks

pedrothefish

I dont know the answers but if you dont get any info on here try the "Ask" section on HotUKdeals there are a lot of experts in those sorts of box

forgotmyname

Build a PC ? I have a PC for my media centre. I have several Raspberry Pi's and run openelec etc.

But i keep going back to the PC because it just works. No matter what comes next it takes it all in its stride.

ferry

forgotmyname wrote: »

Build a PC ? I have a PC for my media centre. I have several Raspberry Pi's and run openelec etc.

But i keep going back to the PC because it just works. No matter what comes next it takes it all in its stride.

I'm thinking of similar.
Mind me asking what spec your PC is built to?

Mista_C

info_addict wrote: »

Due to very poor internet speeds, I currently have all my movies and tv series stored on hard drives and play them through XBMC 10.1 on an old Revo pc. They are configured using Ember Media Manager data.

To save storage I now wish to play H265 files. I have tried upgrading to Kodi, but the Revo isn't capable of playing 1080p content smoothly. Also tried running it via Openelec on a USB stick, but just the same result.

Just looking for a plain and simple alternative I can plug my drives into and run Kodi. Have been looking at something like this

http://www.gearbest.com/tv-box-mini-pc/pp_471368.html

But I have no need for Android , or streaming etc.

Is there anything else I could consider? It must come with a remote or be capable of mouse control.

Thanks

I'm using a similar set up with an old Revo R3600 running Ubuntu with Kodi and 1080p runs fine. I've run all sorts on there including H265 content without a problem. I would suggest first ruling out other issues such as hard drive speed etc.

ETA: I just remembered I swapped out the HDD for a WD Black and replaced the RAM with 2*2GB Corsair sticks.

info_addict

Thanks for your replies.

@pedrothefish - I have posted my question on Hotukdeals as you suggest. That's where I found the Mini M8s box

@forgotmyname - Way too long in the tooth to even attempt trying to build my own PC.

@Mista_C - Mine is the Revo 3610 but only has 2 sticks of 1GB ram. Thereby lies the problem with Windows 7 and Kodi. It runs out of memory. To upgrade it to 2 x 2GB sticks - well for the cost I may as well buy the box I listed. Plus no idea of putting on Ubuntu to enable it to recognise the 4GB

S0litaire

I've got my R-Pi3 running as a headless Plex Media Server, it's a tiny bit slower then my Linux box but it's not too bad.

It's probably better for you to pick up an R-Pi3 (£35 ish) stick OpenElec (Oh!! also shell out the £3.40 for the 2 Codec licenses from Rasberry.org!!)

I tried it with OpenElec and it could playback 1080p flawlessly from a 1Tb hard disk. (you need at least a 2.5a USB power supply for things to run)

I've got one of those android box's in it's box somewhere!
Tried it for a bit but with ZERO support from the makers i gave up (as it's a total pain to update the android version).
It did run Kodi perfectly, but had an issue getting it to notice my NAS and my External 1Tb disk.
It kept wanting to only read from SD card and ignore USB drives within Kodi!
I gave up on it.

If you get an android box make sure it's got no-going support and updates! Or at least it can be flashed easily with another Android version if required!!

Nodding_Donkey

If you go with the one in your OP then buy from this link, http://www.gearbest.com/tv-box-mini-pc/pp_390234.html?wid=3

That comes from an EU warehouse so no surprise import charges

forgotmyname

ferry wrote: »

I'm thinking of similar.
Mind me asking what spec your PC is built to?

Its ancient now but still no issues playing all content. From memory its a dual core Athlon 2.5 or 2.7Ghz, 2GB RAM, A couple of TB internally ( this is the only changes since building it.

Bought a NAS box a while back so more stuff is streamed to it now. Internal storage less of an issue.